Juan GonzalezProduct Cybersecurity Risk Analyst| Extron ElectronicsSouth Gate, Ca, United States
Just some ideas:
1. How do you prioritize your tasks?
I prioritize based on the priorities and mission/vision of the company, once I have identified those it makes prioritizing my tasks easier. If the company doesn't have a list of priorities or mission/vision, then I help to establish that based on benefits the organization would receive based on my tasks.
2. How do you pick your priorities?
What is the mission or vision of the company, if it's support, then I will prioritize support tasks first. Saving Changes...
Is this an interview for a PM position? If so, then my general statement would be to prioritize based on what is most important to achieving project objectives/success.
This is part of the judgment of a good PM - most that I've met, managed or mentored do this without actually thinking about "how" they do it...
Kiron Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Anton
Interesting your question
Thanks for sharing
After the fantastic comments from Juan and Kiron, what more can I add? :-) Saving Changes...
There are a variety of factors that may influence prioritization:
Some tasks are mandatory. Others are nice to do but not essential to do. Mandatory takes priority.
Some tasks are prioritized by strategic alignment to business goals, like safety first.
Some tasks are on the critical path. Other tasks can be done at any time with no schedule impact.
Some tasks can be completed quickly and give the team quick victories. Those may take priority over tasks supporting long drawn out activities with questionable outcomes. Saving Changes...
As an addendum to my earlier response, if you wish a more analytical method, you could:
1. Do pairwise sorting (e.g. is Task A more important than Task B?)
2. Do a quantitative ranking using something like Cost of Delay/Effort required (a.k.a. Weighted Shortest Job First)
Kiron Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Good ideas so far.
Practically I would add
- Eisenhowers urgent/important marix
- making it a habit to prioritize every morning
- being aware when you are most effective working on priorities
And philiosophical be aware that setting priorities is decision making - so be aware of your biases, gather data to reduce risk, understand decision making techniques like group decision making etc Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Priorities about what? The schedule drive the priorities. Perhaps I did not understand your question. Saving Changes...
Khai Ng.IT PMO | IT Project Manager| TTGROUPHanoi, Viet Nam
Assuming that your question relates to tasks in a project, then you should analyze dependencies between tasks. As PMBOK (section 6.3.3.2, Sixth Edition) points out, there are 4 attributes as Mandatory, Discretionary, Internal and External that you can use to analyze your task dependencies. These should be used in combination with analyzing the urgent/important, value, and risk associated with each task. Saving Changes...
